Incidentally, he was asked not to choose one of his most high-profile commissions, A History of the World in 100 Objects, which has featured a lot on Feedback of late – and Feedback itself.

First up was the Wenner Tapes, an in-depth portrait of John Lennon as told through the audio of Jann Wenner's seminal 1970 New York interview for Rolling Stone magazine.

Damazer said he "fell off my chair with excitement" when he commissioned the show which, unusually for a Radio 4 programme, featured 17 F-words which he decided not to bleep.

He described it as "extraordinary" and a "genuine historical document".

"John Lennon was a huge cultural figure. There were indeed some complaints about the language. I think the majority of the audience would have been startled by the frankness and theatricality of John's performance ... a tremendous programme and of lasting significance."

Damazer's second choice was Coming Home, presented by the late Charles Wheeler, who he described as "arguably the best foreign correspondent the BBC ever had". The programme featured personal interpretations of what the end of the second world war meant to people in Britain and across the world.

Damazer, a former BBC News executive, said: "Other than the fact that the Today programme is the most important programme on the network and has the biggest audience and so on, the programme in itself although it frequently gets caught up in the hurly burly of democratic argument and rows and is it one question too many or one question too few ... what the programme stands for is a really important form of debating the issues and allowing arguments to be heard and exposed and discussed and analysed and it is in itself an emblem of liberal pluralism.

"The programme stands for something in British life beyond even what it stands for Radio 4 and BBC News. It is a way of allowing the country to hear extremely powerful and important people debate and argue with one another.

"It stands for the best forms of liberal pluralism and debate even in its obvious imperfections and rough edges and heaven knows there are those but in the end I think British society would be vastly poorer without it. I am incredibly proud to have been associated with it."